


Once

by ThePsuedonym



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Berk (How to Train Your Dragon), Complete, Gen, How do I tag?, May be depressing to some readers, Mentions of Astrid, Post-How To Train Your Dragon 3, mentions of Toothless, slightly spoilery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 13:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4140048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePsuedonym/pseuds/ThePsuedonym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most people were too young to remember the dragons, now. Of the few that recalled, they lost pets and companions.</p><p>Hiccup had lost a brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by (but not entirely based off of) axondrive's 'There were dragons when I was a boy'.

TAKE ONE

The sounds of hard labor filled the village: men at the docks, unloading their nets of fish and other surprises as others rig their vessels to set out; women haggling their goods, arguing the equality of their trades as animals bleated and lowed in apathy; the hiss of steam, followed by the ring of the blacksmith’s hammer striking heated iron.  
All were signs of a healthy village, of a prospering people. They were ruled benevolently by their chief, a strong man in his prime years with the wisdom of his forefathers guiding him. The people were happy. Their crops were bountiful, their yaks strong and furry, their sheep woolen and fat. There was no complaint to be found among the laborers.  
As the sun set on the horizon, and the last of the fishermen returned to the harbor, the villagers retired to the mead hall for the night’s food and drink, another small celebration of a successful day and hopes to a prosperous tomorrow.  
Outside, however, a man sat on the cliffs. His hair and beard had grayed with age, skin spotted with the telltale signs of sun in his youth. Sharp green eyes untouched by time scanned the distant horizon for something only he could see. Once-strong hands had clasped themselves together in the patience only experience granted. A single booted foot hung over the rocky ledge, its twin long lost to fire; in its place was a wood-and-metal limb, scarred and scratched but oiled and cared for. The twin pronged end was ill-suited for walking, as though the false leg had been designed for a different purpose.  
Without a word, an equally elderly woman draped a woolen blanket over him; her own face was lined with years of stress and worry, blue eyes shadowed with empathy. Her hair, braided and swung over one shoulder, retained its blond color but had long lost its shine and luster. She set one hand on his pauldron–clad shoulder, the armor a far cry to years long past.  
It wasn’t long before she left. This was his vigil, to hold alone, to await a friend, a brother long gone and never to return. He watched the sky until crimson and gold faded to purples and indigo, then to the ebony star-speckled black of night, at which time his son would retrieve him. And every night without fail, as he had done for the past forty years, he would tell his son the same story.  
He would exhale and unlink his hands, placing them on the sturdy rock. It used to scare the chief when he was a child, believing his father would push himself off the cliff to meet certain doom in the fields of Hel. But he would simply watch the sea churn in the distance with an odd reverence his son would never understand.  
“There were dragons when I was a boy,” he began, and the chief would kneel beside his father, tugging at the material left by his mother closer around the elder man.  
“Of course there were, Dad,” he’d mutter. “You should come inside. You’re not a young man anymore, and the village would hate to lose you to frost – ramblings or no.”  
A sigh. “They lived in the village with us, after generations of fighting; we killed the queen controlling them, and saved more from trappers with a king.  
“Then they left, and I lost my best friend.”  
   
TAKE TWO

The thing about living in the village you grew up in, is that it holds a lot of memories. Some good, some bad, some that just were that. Memories. Hiccup remembered many things: learning how to shape metal from Gobber, despite being unable to do so much as lift an axe, let alone forge one; being instructed by his father how to be a good chief, that he should listen to the troubles of his people because they looked to him for solutions; his first kiss from Astrid, and being punched shortly thereafter; flying with Toothless, like those days would never end.  
For Hiccup, Berk was filled with ghosts. Where another might see a house, he saw the burned-out shell of a dragon raid. At the entrance of the mead hall stood Stoic, defending his son from accusations that claimed he had drawn Thor’s ire. In his house was Toothless, slinking up the steps to the second floor and climbing up the support beams to hide amongst the rafters, or stealing fish cooking over the fire. His mother stood over the pot, concocting something inedible and assuring a younger Astrid that the desire for strange foods was normal throughout pregnancy, and how she wanted nothing but paddock, and that was a bit too much information – he had left at that point to the sound of the women’s laughter, Toothless at his side.  
Now he sat upon a cliff side overlooking the ocean, seeking escape from those ghosts. Crimson and gold had long since faded into navy and indigo as Astrid came out for him, a woolen blanket in her hands. She asked no questions – Freyja thank her – and settled the fabric over his shoulders. He didn’t need to turn to her to see the worry lines creasing her face, her blue eyes shadowed with sorrow. Hiccup could feel it himself, in the grey of his hair and the ache of his bones, his own eyes dull and weary. It settled over him like the blanket, in the form of the gear he wore; the riding armor, for protection from the elements and from enemies, and the riding leg that remained in use. With a final pat to the shoulder, she left him with his thoughts.  
Most people were too young to remember the dragons, now. Of the few that recalled, they lost pets and companions.  
Hiccup had lost a brother.  
   
TAKE THREE

This is Berk; as you can see, it’s a small village, with mostly fishing and herding and farming. The people here are as tough as the land they live on, and twice as stubborn. Any one villager would sit through a blizzard or swim to the deepest depths of the ocean just to prove a point, no matter how outrageous or miniscule.  
It’s been… interesting, living here. Working with them. I don’t have much room to complain, though, being the son of two of the most bullheaded individuals to ever exist on the island and raised by one or the other for a considerable portion of my life (don’t ask— it’s a long story).  
That said, it can be difficult to convince anyone of something, especially when they’re determined to outright ignore you or disregard what you say. I could point out a few examples, but that would be pointing fingers and isn’t something a grown adult would do. (Nor do I want irritated Vikings out for my head. Again. Long story).  
Like the kids. Well, they’re adults now, gracefully coming into their thirties, but the generalization also extends to everyone born after them; the entire younger generation, plus the few individuals that have already broached their fortieth year and aren’t in on the secret. If it could be called that, of course, but for all the acceptance it receives from those villagers, it may as well be.  
“Look, Dad,” Sigurd smiled from his place beside the wall, “the legends are great and all – and I agree, it’s important for the kids to know them, but that’s not the problem. You need to stop staying outside at night, especially with the winter season starting. You’ll get sick and die and deprive your grandchildren of their favorite grandfather, and all for what? Some stories about dragons?”  
Case in point.  
Rather than go on about Viking stubbornness, or the disbelief my son afforded me with, I gracefully changed the subject. “I’m their only grandfather,” I muttered.  
“No word games.”  
He fixed me with a stare and I felt rather small. For all my best efforts, I had never been able to exactly duplicate my own father’s Chiefly Stare, which at best looked vaguely terrifying according to Astrid. At worst it made me look like I’d been fighting a Nadder, as the Twins so helpfully described to me. Sigurd, however, had picked it up like he’d been born to stare Vikings down from apparent lunacy. It didn’t help matters any that he looked so much like Stoick, either. I stared back – I had respected my father, of course, but I also had had my moments of rebellion like any other teenager that I could draw strength from now – and tried not to feel like I was peering into the past.  
“No games,” I eventually conceded, dragging my gaze to the wall. Not so great that Sigurd would notice the difference, but enough that I didn’t feel the Norns breathing down my neck.  
His face softened, but only slightly. Vikings didn’t do emotions very well, not outside of a high-stakes environment. Like battling to the death, or fighting for the last choice piece of meat at the table. “It’s not you, Dad,” and wow, what a blast from the past, _you just gestured to all of me_ , “it’s just that Mom died last year and I don’t think anyone is near ready to go through that again.”  
There were several things I could say to that. I went for the most neutral. “This conversation is feeling very one sided,” I echoed. Sigurd made a face, so I quickly added, “I understand where you’re coming from, I do. I was Chief once; I know what it’s like to put everyone else before you and your family. It’s…”  
And how could I possibly explain what I felt? What he didn’t understand? That there were dragons, once, that they had raided Berk for seven generations before a fateful meeting had led to what may very well have been the greatest cultural, societal and economic revolution in all of history? (For all the effect that revelation would have on him; we were Vikings, after all.) Where dragons and humans had, if briefly, lived together in peace, as near-equals, content to work together towards a common goal? That he had missed it by a few scant months?  
That I had lost my best friend, when every dragon left the known world disappeared without a trace within a single night.  
Sigurd must have seen something in my expression, or heard it in my silence, because he clapped me on the shoulder. “I’m glad you understand, Dad. But I can’t have you wandering outside at night. Mom shouldn’t have encouraged it, either.”  
Astrid, who had brought blankets without complaint when I stayed out too long. Astrid, who had nothing but smiles and a warm presence when the absence threatened to overwhelm. Astrid, who had lost a friend as well.  
“She knew,” I countered. “She was trained to fight dragons as a child. As were the others.”  
Sigurd levelled me with a look. “Like you?”  
I kept back a biting remark and reigned in a joke. “Not so much, but we were to fight dragons, not other Vikings. So long as they were enemies, every village was too concerned about their own survival to worry about their neighbors.” Discounting that meeting where nearly every major chief had been killed by Drago, of course.  
He was humoring me, of course, but I felt like I was making some headway this time. “Of course you were.” Or not. “And every Viking worth his axe knows how to keep himself alive. Like you should, staying out in the cold as you do.”  
It was always a losing battle with him. I knew it from the moment the conversation had begun, only now it didn’t feel like only a battle, but that a war had been decided. “I won’t stay out so long. Maybe.”  
“Good.” Sigurd nodded once, sharply, and I felt the echoes of the past dissipate as though they had never existed to begin with.  
Of course, that didn’t stop me from spoiling the children rotten with stories of the past.  
“The one with the dragons!” Nanna begged.  
I chuckled, “There are a lot of stories with dragons.”  
“Tell us about you,” Geir said.  
“About me? Hmm, well…” Both of them scooted closer to me, sensing the promise of a good tale.  
“There were dragons when I was a boy.  
“There were great, grim sky dragons that nested on the cliff tops like gigantic scary birds. Little, brown, scuttly dragons that hunted down the mice and rats in well-organized packs. Preposterously huge Sea Dragons that were twenty times as big as the Big Blue Whale and who killed for the fun of it.”  
Each description was accompanied by appropriate gestures; my hands became claws to demonstrate the terror that dragons once induced, a hand low to the ground to articulate the size of the smaller dragons, and hands spread wide apart for the great breadth of the Red Death and Drago’s Bewilderbeast.  
“Nobody knows what is happening. They are crawling back into the sea from whence they came, leaving not a bone, not a fang, in the earth for the men of the future to remember them by.  
“So, in order that these amazing creatures should not be forgotten, I will tell this true story from my childhood.”  
Geir and Nanna were clutching at my knee by this time, eyes wide with wonder and curiosity. I lowered myself to their level, slowly because of my prosthetic, and continued.  
“I was not the sort of boy who could train a dragon with a mere lifting of an eyebrow. I was not a natural at the Heroism business. I had to work at it. This is the story of becoming a Hero the Hard Way.”  
I paused for effect and caught sight of someone else. “Here for a story, Sigurd?”  
He looked to his children: “I believe it’s time for bed,” and to me, over the sounds of small feet that scurried away, “Must you persist with your dragons?”  
I could hear the weariness in his voice, but it didn’t alleviate my irritation. “You agreed that our history was important.”  
“No, I said legends. They’re nothing but legends. Important legends, but with no more truth behind them than trolls.” Sigurd sighed and scratched at his beard, contemplative. “I would have thought that our talk earlier would have put you off the topic for the night,” he admitted.  
I crossed my arms defiantly. “I always have time for dragons.” The anger was unusual but not unwelcome; chief or not, it was not improper or looked down upon to recount the village’s history, or even one’s own childhood to the younger generations. “And they’re not legends, Sigurd, they’re our history.”  
“Then why aren’t there any flying around now?”  
And there it was. The biggest question of them all. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But there were dragons when I was a boy; there were dragons when your mother was a young girl, and when your grandparents were children, and their parents, and before Berk was first built.”  
“Dad, if there were dragons–”  
“There were–!”  
“If there were,” Sigurd continued over my protest, “there aren’t any now. And if they haven’t come back yet, they may never.” He placed a hand on my shoulder, one meant to be more comforting than the parting touch he had given earlier. “We both know that you aren’t as young as you used to be, Dad. You can’t spend the rest of your life waiting for them to come back. Wouldn’t you rather show them what you achieved? That we’re not entirely dependent on them?”  
I smiled, though I didn’t feel any joy. “That could go two ways,” I pointed out.  
He shrugged. “Sure. But we survived without them before, and we can do it again.”  
“Yeah.”  
Satisfied, Sigurd changed the topic to something that didn’t stir up so much disagreement between us before returning to his bed. I stood, began banking the fire for the night and thought about what Sigurd had said.  
We had survived, surely, but it was a far cry from living.


End file.
